ORESME, NICOLE

(b.Allemagne [later Fleury sur Orne, near Caen, France], c. 1320; d. Lisieux, France, 1382)

mathematics, natural philosophy.

For the original article on Oresme see DSB, vol. 10.

Scholarship since the 1970s has enriched the understanding of Oresme’s contributions to the history of natural philosophy. There is in the early 2000s a more detailed understanding of the nature of the intellectual environment during his studies at the University of Paris. Analyses of his commentaries on Aristotle’s Physics and On the Heavens reveal Oresme’s utilization of the logical and semantical theories of his day. A subsequent critical edition of Oresme’s treatise On Seeing the Stars shows that he made significant contributions to optics and the study of atmospheric refraction that have previously been overlooked by historians of science.

Early Career . New documentary evidence on Nicole Oresme’s earlier academic and ecclesiastical career and a more precise assessment of the University of Paris’s institutional setting has contributed to a different overview of Oresme’s natural philosophy as well as, more generally, of fourteenth-century philosophy. John Buridan’s role in the philosophical training of University of Paris masters such as Nicole Oresme, Albert of Saxony, and Marsilius of Inghen has to be revised, taking into consideration that students only rarely chose their supervising masters; they could attend lectures given by masters as well as disputations outside their Nation, but the notion of “school” must, if one wishes to use it, take into account the peculiar university’s institutional habits and procedures. On the basis of University of Paris rotuli sent to the papal court with the view of obtaining ecclesiastical benefices for the university masters, the date of Oresme’s master’s degree has now been determined to be 1341 or 1342, at least six years earlier than previously thought (1348). According to the new chronology, Oresme studied when the diffusion of William of Ockham’s doctrines, on logic as well as on natural philosophy, was at its apex; moreover, the spread of the ideas of other English authors such as Thomas Bradwardine and William Heytesbury, whose influence on Oresme’s scientific thought is well known, also occurred some years earlier than previously thought. The first years of his academic career in the Faculty of Arts were troubled not only by the diffusion of Ockham’s ideas but also by the condemnations of Nicholas of Autrécourt (1346) and Jean de Mirecourt (1347); the work of both masters was of great importance to Oresme’s scientific thought.

The Possibility of Scientific Knowledge . According to Nicholas of Autrécourt, scientific knowledge can only be obtained through propositions that can be reduced to the principle of contradiction; this condition drastically reduced the possibility of scientific knowledge in natural philosophy, so much so that masters of arts were urged to discuss in their commentaries on Aristotle’s natural works whether a scientific analysis of the problems at issue (usually in the commentaries on the Physics) was even possible. Oresme accurately distinguishes two kinds of evident propositions: (1) the perfectly evident ones, whose contrary implies contradiction, typical of mathematics; and (2) the almost perfectly evident ones, whose contrary is not impossible, which are to be found in natural philosophy (Questions on the Physics, Book I, Question 3). On this basis he shows that skeptical attitudes are excessive with regard to the possibility of human knowledge about physical events.

The distinction between these two kinds of evidence lets Oresme introduce into natural enquiry the so-called imaginary cases (some of them well known by the historian of science, e.g., the plurality of worlds and the Earth’s rotation), which can be proposed because, even though they are not real, they are nonetheless possible. Oresme’s belief in the convenience of using mathematics in natural philosophy relies on this ground. So, even if the methods of analysis of the two disciplines must remain different— that is, natural philosophy cannot proceed in a deductive way like mathematics (Questions on De anima, Book I, Question1)—some mathematical tools such as points, lines, and surfaces (and the rules of geometry) can be found useful in natural philosophy. Oresme favors the application of geometry to explain not only vision (perspectiva), but also physical events, relying explicitly on Robert Grosseteste’s writings (and primarily on De lineis) and having in mind Aristotle’s scientie mediae (Questions on De spera, Question 1).

Views on Substance and Accident . The change in Oresme’s ideas about motion in his commentaries on the Physics (Questions on the Physics, Book III, where motion is considered a modus not different ontologically from the moving body) and On the soul (Questions on De anima, Book II, Question 15, where it is defined as an accidental property of the moving body) was probably caused by the condemnation of Jean de Mirecourt, who introduced in Paris the ontology of modi rerum.

In his only partially edited commentary on the Physics, Oresme deals with physical topics such as motion, space, and time systematically relying on the theory of modi rerum, according to which accidental properties such as those registered in Aristotle’s Praedicamenta are to be considered as modifications of the substance, rather than as real beings inhering to real substances. Oresme presents his solution as a third way of dealing with the ontological problems concerning the relationship between substance and accidents, in addition to the “common opinion” defending the reality of accidental properties (at a lower level of substance, in which they inhere), and to the “nominalistic” theory, according to which accidents are not different from substance (with the exception of qualities, in order to avoid dangerous theological implications). In his Physics commentary Oresme restates his position (already put forth in the previous books) in book 5, where he discusses the intension and remission of qualitative forms, a basic element in the analysis of natural change and a field in which his contribution toward a geometrical study of qualitative changes and motion is particularly original (see the original DSB article). Oresme declares explicitly that his solution is the simplest, and one that can overcome every kind of difficulty (Questions on the Physics, Book V, Question 9).

In introducing his theory of modi rerum Oresme makes use of semantical tools such as the complexe significabile (what can be rendered through a sentence). Only substances can be duly expressed by nouns, while accidents and relations (according to Oresme modi or conditiones rerum) are to be rendered through sentences in the infinitive form: aliquod esse album (that something is white) for the quality “white”; lapidem aliter se habere quam prius(that a stone is in a different position as before) for the motion of a stone. This is not the only passage that permits an ascription to him of a deep acquaintance with logic, possibly exceeding the normal university training, even though he never ventured to write a treatise or a commentary on logical topics.

The Limits of Powers . In his commentary On the Heavens he deals with the problems of the potential limits of natural substances (de maximo et minimo), a topic also discussed by William Heytesbury in his Regulae solvendi sophismata and probably introduced in the debates held at the Faculty of Arts in Paris not earlier than the third decade of the fourteenth century. In this commentary Oresme studies the limits of activity of natural powers on the basis of the fourfold distinction typical of the de maximo et minimo theory (maximum quod sic and minimum quod non for the active powers, representing respectively intrinsic and extrinsic limits; minimum quod sic and maximum quod non for passive powers), and places the limits of active power in an extrinsic limit. The reason for such a choice is to be found in the divisibility of the amount by which the power is greater than resistance (according to the law that in order to have an action the active power must be greater than the resistive one); the limit is to be determined as the least in which the natural power cannot act (minimum quod non). In order to reach this solution Oresme relies on the semantical theory of suppositio(and specifically on suppositio confusa tantum, through which one is not obliged to exhibit a definite limit, in conformity with the infinite divisibility either of the quantity of power or of the space or the temporal duration).

Oresme’s systematic use of the modi rerum theory in his Physics commentary leads to original solutions concerning motion, space, and time, major topics discussed in this book. Viewing motion as a modus of the moving body permits him to avoid shortcomings such as the denial of motion (Ockham’s solution, reducing motion to the moving body) and the problems that result from considering it as an inherent accident as well (John Buridan’s solution); in this case, in fact, it would be very difficult to maintain the basic permanent (totum simul) character of accidental forms, motion being essentially continuous.

Oresme maintains the same semi-reductionist attitude toward the other two major physical topics discussed in Aristotle’s Physics: place and time. These are neither accidental forms nor conceptual devices for describing physical events; they are inner conditions (conditiones seu modi) of bodies, properly rendered through adverbs like “here, there, now, yesterday,” rather than nouns such as “place” and “time,” which would denote them as substances. As for motion, such an ontological commitment gives Oresme the opportunity to elude the problem of the infinite (just because of the insubstantiality of modi rerum), making a mathematical analysis easier. Oresme proposes on this basis a definition of place and time different than Aristotle's: Instead of the “innermost motionless boundary of what contains it” (Aristotle, The Complete Works: Physics, Book IV, 4, 212a20–21, trans. J. Barnes, 1984)), for Oresme place is the “space filled by the body, which would be empty if the body were removed” (Questions on the Physics, Book IV, Question 1); time, rather than the measure of motion (Physics IV, 11, 219b1–2) is successive duration (duratio rerum successiva, Questions on the Physics, Book IV, Question17), a stronger notion that cannot be reduced exclusively to the measure of duration.

Atmospheric Refraction . A 2006 study of Oresme’s treatise De visione stellarum reveals yet another example of his major contributions to natural philosophy. Dan Burton (2006) argues that Oresme was the first to make a theoretical study of atmospheric refraction, a phenomenon of great practical import to astronomers as well as of philosophical significance. After all, if the stars are not where they appear to be, how reliable is knowledge gained through the senses? Oresme proposes that light from the stars travels along a curved path in the atmosphere whose density varies uniformly. Thus refraction need not occur only at the interface of two materials, as had been believed by all his predecessors (Grant, 2007). In his mathematical analysis Oresme uses his knowledge of infinite convergent series. Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton later took up this approach to atmospheric refraction and provided a demonstration of Oresme’s result.

SUPPLEMENTARY BIBLIOGRAPHY

Albert Douglas Menut’s bibliography of Oresme’s works (“A Provisional Bibliography of Oresme’s Writings,” Medieval Studies 28 [1966]: 279–299, and the “Supplementary Note,” Medieval Studies 31 [1969]: 346–347) has been supplanted by the entry “Nicolaus Oresme” in Olga Weijers, Le travail intellectuel à la Faculté des Arts de Paris: Textes et maîtres (ca. 1200–1500), vol. 6. (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2005). The great part of Oresme’s commentaries on Aristotle’s works has been edited, as follows in the “Works” section.

WORKS BY ORESME

De celo: Claudia Kren, The Questiones super De celo of Nicole Oresme, PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, 1965.

Commentary on John of Holiwood’s De spera: Garrett Droppers, The Questiones De spera of Nicole Oresme. PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, 1966.

Metereologics: Stepen C. McCluskey Jr., Nicole Oresme on Light, Color, and the Rainbow. PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, 1974. Questions on the third book.

Questio contra divinatores horoscopios: Stefano Caroti, “Nicole Oresme, Quaestio contra divinatores horoscopios,” Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Age 43 (1976): 201–310.

De sensu et sensato: Jole Agrimi, Le “Quaestiones de sensu” attribuite a Oresme e Alberto di Sassonia. Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1983.

Quodlibeta: Bert Hansen, Nicole Oresme and the Marvels of Nature: A Study of His “De causis mirabilium.” Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1985. Parts 1 and 2.

De anima: Benoît Patar, Nicolai Oresme Expositio et Quaestiones in Aristotelis “De anima.” Edition, étude, critique. Études doctrinales en collaboration avec Claude Gagnon. LouvainLa-Neuve, Louvain, Paris: Éditions de l’Institut Supérieur de Philosophie, Éditions Peeters, 1995.

De generatione et corruptione: Stefano Caroti, ed., Quaestiones super De generatione et corruptione. Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1996.

Physica: Stefan Kirschner, ed., Nicolaus Oresmes Kommentar zur Physik des Aristoteles. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1997 (books 3–4; questions 6–9 of book 5). The complete edition edited by Stefano Caroti, Jean Celeyrette, Stefan Kirschner, and Edmond Mazet is forthcoming.

De visione stellarum: Dan Burton, Nicole Oresme’s “De visione stellarum” (On Seeing the Stars): A Critical Edition of Oresme’s Treatise on Optics and Atmospheric Refraction, with an Introduction, Commentary, and English Translation. Leiden: Brill, 2006.

OTHER SOURCES

Bosemberg, Zoe “Nicole Oresme et Robert Grosseteste: La conception dynamique de la matière.” In “Quia inter doctores est magna dissensio”: Les débats de philosophie naturelle à Paris au XIVe siècle, edited by Stefano Caroti and Jean Celeyrette. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2004.

Busard, Hubertus L. L. “Die Quellen von Nicole Oresme.” Janus58 (1971): 161–193.

Cadden, Joan. “Charles V, Nicole Oresme, and Christine de Pizan: Unities and Uses of Knowledge in Fourteenth-Century France.” In Texts and Contexts in Ancient and Medieval Science: Studies on the Occasion of John E. Murdoch’s Seventieth Birthday, edited by Edith Dudley Sylla and Michael M. McVaugh. Leiden and New York: Brill, 1997.

Caroti, Stefano. “Ordo universalis e impetus nei Quodlibeta di Nicole Oresme.” Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Sciences33 (1983): 213–233.

_____. “Ein Kapitel der mittelalterlichen Diskussion über reactio: Das novum fundamentum Nicole Oresmes und dessen Widerlegung durch Marsilius von Inghen.” In Historia Philosophiae Medii Aevi. Studien zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters: Festschrift für Kurt Flach zu seinem 60. Geburtstag, edited by Burkhard Mojsisch and Olaf Pluta, vol. 1. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: Grüner, 1991.

_____. “Oresme on Motion.” Vivarium 31 (1993): 8–36.

_____. “La position de Nicole Oresme sur la nature du mouvement (Questiones super Physicam III, 1–8): Problèmes gnoséologiques, ontologiques et sémantiques.” Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Age 61 (1994): 303–385. _____. “Nicole Oresme et les modi rerum.” Oriens-Occidens 3 (2000): 115–144.

_____. “Time and Modi Rerum in Nicole Oresme’s PhysicsCommentary.” In The Medieval Concept of Time: Studies on the Scholastic Debate and Its Reception in Early Modern Philosophy, edited by Pasquale Porro. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2001.

Celeyrette, Jean. “Le statut des mathématiques dans la Physique d’Oresme.” Oriens-Occidens 3 (2000): 91–113.

_____. Figura/figuratum par Jean Buridan et Nicole Oresme.” In “Quia inter doctores est magna dissensio”: Les débats de philosophie naturelle à Paris au XIVe siècle, edited by Stefano Caroti and Jean Celeyrette. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2004.

_____. , and Edmond Mazet. “La hierarchie des degrés d’être chez Nicole Oresme.” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 8 (1998): 45–65.

Courtenay, William J. “The Early Career of Nicole Oresme.” Isis91 (2000): 542–548.

Di Liscia, Daniel A. “Sobre la doctrina de las “Configurationes” de Nicolas de Oresme.” Patristica et Mediaevalia 11 (1990): 79–105.

_____. “Aceleracion y caída de los graves en Oresme: Sobre la inaplicabilidad del teorema de la velocidad media.” Patristica et Mediaevalia 13 (1992): 61–84; 14 (1993): 41–56.

Grant, Edward. “Scientific Thought in Fourteenth-Century Paris: Jean Buridan and Nicole Oresme.” In Machaut’s World: Science and Art in the Fourteenth Century, edited by Madeleine Pelner Cosman and Bruce Chandler. New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1978.

_____. “Nicole Oresme on Certitude in Science and Pseudo-Science.” In Nicolas Oresme: Tradition et innovation chez un intellectuel du XIVe siècle, edited by Pierre Souffrin and Alain P. Ségonds. Paris and Padua: Les Belles Lettres–Programma 1+1 Editori, 1988.

_____. “Nicole Oresme, Aristotle’s ‘On the Heavens,’ and the Court of Charles V.” In Texts and Contexts in Ancient and Medieval Science: Studies on the Occasion of John E. Murdoch’s Seventieth Birthday, edited by Edith Dudley Sylla and Michael R. McVaugh. Leiden and New York: Brill, 1997.

_____. A History of Natural Philosophy: From the Ancient World to the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Hugonnard-Roche, Henri. “Logique et philosophie naturelle au XIVe siècle: La critique d’Aristote par Nicole Oresme.” In Actes du 109^e Congrès national des Sociétés savantes, Dijon 1984. Section Histoire des sciences et des techniques. Paris: Comité des Travaux historiques et scientifiques, 1984.

_____. “Modalités et argumentation chez Nicole Oresme.” In Nicolas Oresme: Tradition et innovation chez un intellectuel du XIVe siècle, edited by Pierre Souffrin and Alain P. Ségonds. Paris and Padua: Les Belles Lettres–Programma 1+1 Editori, 1988.

Kirschner, Stefan. “Oresme on Intension and Remission of Qualities in His Commentary on Aristotle’s ‘Physics.’” Vivarium 38 (2000): 255–274.

_____. “Oresme’s Concepts of Place, Space, and Time in His Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics.” Oriens-Occidens 3 (2000): 145–179.

Marshall, Peter. “Nicole Oresme on the Nature, Reflection, and Speed of Light.” Isis 72 (1981): 357–374.

_____. “Parisian Psychology in the Mid-Fourteenth Century.” Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Age 50 (1983): 101–193.

Lejbowicz, Max. “Argumentation oresmienne et logique divinatoire (quelques remarques sur le De commensurabilitate, III).” In Preuve et raisons à l’Université de Paris: Logique, ontologie et théologie au XIVe siècle, edited by Zénon Kaluza and Paul Vignaux. Paris: Vrin, 1984.

Mazet, Edmond. “Un aspect de l’ontologie d’Oresme: L’équivocité de l’étant et ses rapports avec la théorie des complexe significabilia et avec l’ontologie oresmienne de l’accident.” Oriens-Occident 3 (2000): 67–89.

_____. “Pierre Ceffons et Oresme: Leur relation revisitée.” In “Quia inter doctores est magna dissensio”: Les débats de philosophie naturelle à Paris au XIVe siècle, edited by Stefano Caroti and Jean Celeyrette. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2004.

Molland, George A. “Nicole Oresme and Scientific Progress.” In Antiqui und Moderni: Traditionsbewu?tsein und Fortschrittsbewu?tsein im späten Mittelalter, edited by Albert Zimmermann. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1974.

_____. “The Oresmian Style: Semi-Mathematical, Semi-Holistic.” In Nicolas Oresme: Tradition et innovation chez un intellectuel du XIVe siècle, edited by Pierre Souffrin and Alain P. Ségonds. Paris and Padua: Les Belles Lettres–Programma 1+1 Editori, 1988.

Quillet, Jeannine, ed. Autour de Nicole Oresme: Actes du Colloque Oresme organisé à l’Université de Paris XII. Paris: Vrin, 1990.

_____. “Nicole Osreme et la science nouvelle dans le livre du Ciel et du Monde.” In Knowledge and the Sciences in Medieval Philosophy. Proceedings of the Eight International Congress of Medieval Philosophy (SIEPM), edited by Simo Knuuttila, Reijo Työrinoja, and Sten Ebbesen, vol. 2. Helsinki: Societas Philosophica Fennica, 1990.

Rusnock, Paul. “Oresme on Ratios of Lesser Inequality.” Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Sciences 45 (1995): 263–272.

Sarnowsky, Jürgen. “Nicole Oresme and Albert of Saxony’s Commentary on the Physics: The Problems of Vacuum and Motion in a Void.” In “Quia inter doctores est magna dissensio”: Les débats de philosophie naturelle à Paris au XIVe siècle, edited by Stefano Caroti and Jean Celeyrette. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2004.

Souffrin, Pierre. “La quantification du mouvement chez les scolastiques: La vitesse instantanée chez Nicole Oresme.” In Autour de Nicole Oresme: Actes du Colloque Oresme organisé à l’Université de Paris XII, edited by Jeannine Quillet. Paris: Vrin, 1990.

Souffrin, Pierre, and Alain P. Ségonds, eds. Nicolas Oresme: Tradition et innovation chez un intellectuel du XIVe siècle. Paris and Padua: Les Belles Lettres–Programma 1+1 Editori, 1988.

Taschow, Ulrich. “Die Bedeutung der Musik als Modell für Nicole Oresmes Theorie ‘De configurationibus qualitatum et motuum.’” Early Science and Medicine 4 (1999): 37–90.

Thijssen, Hans. “Buridan, Albert of Saxony, and Oresme, and a Fourteenth-Century Collection of Quaestiones on the Physics and on De generatione et corruptione.” Vivarium24 (1986): 70–82.

Von Plato, Jan. “Nicole Oresme and the Ergodicity of Rotations.” Acta Philosophica Fennica32 (1981): 190–197.

Zanin, Fabio. “Passio corruptiva/passio perfectiva: A basic Distinction in Oresme’s Theory of Knowledge.” In “Quia inter doctores est magna dissensio”: Les débats de philosophie naturelle à Paris au XIVe siècle, edited by Stefano Caroti and Jean Celeyrette. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2004.

Stefano Caroti